The present invention relates to a method and a system for accessing information and/or data available on a wide area computer network, like the Internet.
Wide area computer networks, or global networks, like the Internet, are now used across the world by millions of individuals to convey all types of information and data, such as textual data, images or any other media capable of being translated into digital form. These networks have developed at a lightening pace over the last ten years and the quantity of information now accessible to everyone has become practically unlimited.
Access to sites on these computer networks is governed by determined addresses or links (also called URLs—“Universal Resource Locators”) generally allocated by national regulating authorities. A user wishing to be connected to a specific site necessarily has to memorize these links to obtain the relevant information he is seeking, these links being more or less long and complex to memorize. Although the links are generally “translated” and specified in intelligible terms relating typically to the trade name or designation used by the company or person maintaining the sites, there is a recurrent risk of error when such a link is entered, which may result in connection to a different site from that which was originally desired, or, quite simply, in a failure to connect to the desired site.
Moreover, given the typical complexity of the organisation of the sites, the user is generally connected first of all to the main page of the site in question before being able to access the specific site page showing the information he is seeking. This problem is all the more frequent when the pages of such sites are regularly updated and the links to such pages can evolve at the will of maintenance of the sites.
This also constitutes a major problem for companies or individuals wishing to offer services aimed at clients or users as well as quick and direct access to information.
Moreover, there is no real cohesion between this information and data media formed by the global computer networks and the other conventional media such as television or radio for example. Although it is currently possible to verbally or visually indicate a link to a site to a potential user via a TV or radio commercial or any other visual or audio announcement transmitted by similar means, this mode of communication is not currently satisfactory, in particular because of the complexity and breadth of information which has to be memorized by the user as was already mentioned hereinbefore. When this mode of communication is used, typically only the main link of the site on the network will be indicated, and not the site page on which the relevant information itself is shown. It is thus the user himself who peruses the site in question in order to find the desired information.
There therefore exists a real need for a solution enabling both the user to access data and/or information available on these global computer networks easily, quickly and directly, and enabling the site managers to provide direct access to the pages containing such data and/or information.